I Want Your Help! :)

As a follow-up to my last post, I've talked around, and apparently there's a huge need at some local men's and women's shelters for good clothes. The majority of the clothes available at the shelter are old, out-of-style, and very worn. Our brothers and sisters need good clothes, name-brand clothes, clothes they will be proud of. Clothes the kids can wear to school and not look like they live in a shelter. Clothes the adults can wear to job interviews and end this cycle of homelessness.

I want your help. With every passing day and every new prayer, God changes my heart a little bit more, and it's a little bit easier to give away my things. I want to invite you to join me on this journey of fulfillment and love. Let's not be marked by materialism and greed with the logos and labels on our clothes. Let's give away that Polo and Calvin Klein, and let's live like Jesus.

I'm going this friday, and we can go anytime we want. Come with me to the shelter and let's give our clothes away. Let's meet the people that need them, and let's show them a love that weighs more than poverty.

Get Over Yourself! (thanks Stephanie Richey for this title)

There's too much I want to do. There's always homework--I'm in the middle of my thesis, and so there's always work I want (yes want) to be doing on that. There's always some friend doing something awesome that I want to be a part of. There's always something fun happening on campus, and I want to do it all.

But right now, I want to get over myself more. I want to say no to watching movies with friends and doing stupid stuff and having fun, and I want to start changing this world. I will not lie about this. It's hard because if I leave and go do that, then I'm missing out on all these fun things my friends are doing.

But it's time I get over myself. It's time I say no to more things, and it's time I start being intentional about serving in this community.

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after the orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." (James 1:27)

Let's believe this and go.

All of our tracks and our ten percents and our sermons and our bible studies and our fellowships and our worship music just aren't going to feed people, and they're not going to change this world. Relationships will. Serving will.

It's time for our teachers and our nurses and our pastors and our hair dressers and our mechanics and our students and our everyone to step up and start looking for ways to serve. Start pursuing ways to build relationships with the hurting. Start being church, rolling up our sleeves, and getting dirty.

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I stole this from a Buddhist priest's blog (thestupidway.blogspot.com if you're interested). It's worth reposting (I know I just did that in my last blog post too, but I swear it's good stuff).

“Someone once had a dream in which she asked God to show her heaven and hell. God agreed and first of all brought the person to a dining room that had two tables, one on either side of the room. There were all sorts of delicious food stacked up on the two tables, and there were a lot of hungry people sitting next to the tables trying to eat the food. They could only eat the food by using chopsticks. But the problem was that the chopsticks were about two meters long. And because the chopsticks were so long it was impossible for anyone to pick up the food with the chopsticks and then put the food into his mouth. So everyone was very unhappy and frustrated and dissatisfied because they had all this great food in front of them, but was unable to eat it. God said, ‘This is hell.’ Next, God brought the person to another dining room that looked exactly like the first room. Just like in the first room, there were two tables on either side that were covered with all sorts of delicious food. People were sitting next to the tables, and had the same kind of long chopsticks as in the first room. But the people in this room were all happy and smiling and cheerful. When the person looked closely, she saw that the people in this room weren’t trying to use the chopsticks to pick up the food and put it into their own mouths. Instead, they were using the chopsticks to pick up the food and put the food into the mouth of someone else on the other side of the room. It was easy to use the long chopsticks for that, and everyone could eat plenty that way. God told the person, ‘This is heaven.’”

Hope; [or] As I Can't Remember His Name, I Think of Him as Sohrab From the Kite Runner

The first thing I saw was the patchy, tin houses sloppily packed one on top of another. Scraps of cars and sheets of metal tacked together in fruitless hopes of deterring the downpour of this rainy season. One house has been sinking slowly down the bank into the thick, muddy river. And that got me down.

I saw hundreds and hundreds of children, and children holding more children. Way too many children to fit in these houses, and way too many children that call this place home. Many children weren't wearing shoes, many without shirts, and way too many children on the streets without parents. And that got me down.

I saw a church and a school, both looking more like a rundown shed you'd find in the woods in the US. The school's overcrowded, and there aren't enough supplies nor teachers, making the ratio on the day I helped out 1 pair of scissors and 1 teacher for 70+ kids. The church is sick. It's pastor allows no children to come in and no women to speak during services. They stand in the back and fan their men, reclining in fold-up chairs and listening to sexist, ageist, and nationalist sermons. There's not just poverty here, but corruption. And that got me down.

I saw the three missionaries, two ticos and one nica. I saw them hugging mothers, holding babies, laughing with fathers, playing with children, giving out sandwiches, leading Bible studies, fighting, fighting, fighting. Oh, but one had to sleep here last night because she didn't have money for the 75 cent bus ride home yesterday. With no money coming in or out, they're falling into the same lives of the people they're trying to help. But is there any other way? It's only their hope and their love that keeps them afloat and lets them smile as they don't tell me that their monthly income is $100. I almost spent that much on some shoes yesterday. And that got me down.

I saw a little boy. He walks past some other boys playing soccer, and he's too young. In this place are many children but little childhood. Someone should be holding his hand, but his arms are full with his two younger siblings. He wears the same outfit I've only always seen him wear. I saw him lead his siblings to the cement slab where, under the blazing sun, the children sit watching skits and hearing stories about a man who feeds and heals people; and while distractedly watching a bony dog violently lap up the sewage water running between the houses, I felt myself sinking so low, getting so down.

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In a world where change is an abstraction and not a reality, so much can tear us down, and if we're not careful, we'll find ourselves sliding and sinking and being sucked down the river's bank into that thick, muddy trap. We can not let that happen. That's not the way for change. Change can be concrete. The way for change begins with hope. The way for change begins with love. And most often, these things are found in the ordinary, with change sneaking in, slowly leaking in not in the extraordinary, but in the ordinary, not in the conspicuous, but in the common.

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I didn't see him turn around and notice me sitting there behind him. I didn't see him sit his siblings down against the fence beside us and scoot towards me. I wasn't seeing anything but that stupid dog over there, but I felt him. I felt him slide into my lap, I felt his breathing as he leaned against my chest, and I felt him change me as I looked down and really saw him. I felt that simple, toothless grin lift me up and pull me out. Sitting there together, I don't remember what Bible story was preached, or how long it lasted; I don't remember that boy's name, or what his siblings were doing in that moment. I remember the unspoken between us, uniting everything about us that was still human, and making me believe again.

A Wasteful God

God, I am so pissed off at You right now!

I just got a facebook message from one of my Camp Joy kids. I've spent only 5 days a year with him for 4 summers, and it's been over a year since I've last seen him. Yet, out of the blue, he sends me this message saying how I'm like a brother to him. That he remembers when we prayed together, just us two. That when his guardians yell at him, he remembers all the love he felt at camp. That no one's ever led him to You God like I have.... What the hell is that, God!?!?!

He says those things about me? It's been over a year, and I was only with him for 5 days a year before that. Where are the parents he deserves? Where's the environment and the neighborhood he deserves? Where's the school and the opportunities he deserves? Where's the security and the family and the constant love he deserves? Where's your church, God? Answer me! I'm so angry at you God! You mean you've put no one else in his life to love him and lead him to You, except the crazy white college kids he sees 5 days a year, college kids he's too old to see at Camp now? I don't understand God, but I will love these kids until it kills me, even if their maker won't.

I don't trust you, God. I trust you with Keith. You've done nothing but lavish blessings on me--education, family, opportunities, love. What I don't trust you with are all these kids I see all around me. Kids labeled high risk because they aren't first in anyone's lives. Because You aren't loving them like you're loving me. I see you bring Heaven to me, beneath my feet, here in this world everyday; but I don't trust you to bring about Heaven here for all these kids. Heaven here. Heaven now. I don't trust that one day You'll make all this okay, but that won't stop me from giving and working and hurting and dying and trying until every youth I meet knows and feels they're loved, and then lives in that love so completely that their lives become dedicated to the same suicidal purpose of persisting in love.

I don't trust you. I'm having too hard a time seeing past what I see right now. I see too many without any love, without any homes, without any hope. Too many with only the negative as influences. Too many that know despair and abandon more than joy and affection. Too many surrounded by only hatred and selfishness. Too many orphaned. Too many never hearing the words,

"I love you. I believe in you."

No God. I don't trust you. Not with that. They're too valuable, too priceless for flippant and reckless trust.

I don't trust you, God.

But I want to.

I read in one of Your scriptures today, Luke 9, that popular Sunday School story about Jesus feeding the 5,000 with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish. I don't believe you, I don't trust you for miracles like that anymore. But I want to. I want to believe in a God that preaches healing and hope to hurting people, and a God that when others say it's time to send the people home so they can eat, says, "No. We feed them," and a God that then takes a meager meal and turns it into a feast, physically feeding and showing people what Heaven here looks like. A God that is verb-loving the people here, now. I wan't to believe in that kind of God. And how wasteful you were! There were 12 basketfuls of food left over!

God. Take the 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish that I am, and feed 5,000. Prove to me that I'm not wrong in wanting to trust You. Prove to me that you're still a wasteful God. Be wasteful in your use of my life. Show me what Grace and Provision and Love in waste look like.

The Life I Want

I found him.

His name: Don Horacio López.
Place of birth: Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Current Location: San José, Costa Rica.
Family: beautiful wife, 3 beautiful children.
Profession: Missionary, youth and homeless ministries.

This--listen well, God--this is the life I want.

Anoche. I go with Horacio and his daughter to Carpio, a lower socioeconomic community largely consisting of Nicaraguans. I walk into a blue warehouse-looking building and straight into the middle of band practice. They're all about 16-18 years old. Baterias, guitaras, teclado (unweighted keys and no pedal), micrófonos, and voces that make God cry. We play, we sing, we worship. Some call me Andrés, favoring my more culturally adaptable middle name to my straight gringo first name. Some don't play or sing, so for a while, I join a game of one-touch fútbol (two touches and everyone gets a free kick at your body. I know. So awesome). "Hey, debes venir en domingo a la iglesia y cantar con nosotros para el servicio." Por su puesto. No hesitations. A few other people walk in carrying three loaves of pan y 2 litres of fresco. We're sharing cups and passing around the table the sweet, fresh pan still warm from the local bakery. This communion we share while they tell me jokes and talk about the Copa Mundial.

Horacio starts talking, and immediately all eyes are on him. Respect and love are in those eyes. Horacio prays. He asks who's grown in God this past week. Jeffry, a leader in his group of friends, speaks up first. "He estado leyendo la Biblia todos los everyday. Esta mañana, leyó Mateo 13." I laugh at his use of espanglish and am moved by his spirit I sense inspiring his friends. Horacio reads the parable about the people at a wedding with their oil and their lamps, waiting for the groom to arrive. "Es un buen mensaje para nosotros jóvenes, porque no podemos esperar. Tenemos que acercarnos a Dios hoy, servir al Señor hoy, y ser preparados para su vuelta hoy," one says.

Esta mañana. I walk to Horacio's house and join him and his wife in their car, first helping them load coolers of water and café and huge containers of pan into the trunk. We drive straight into downtown San José, where a group of indigentes (homeless) are already waiting for us at el parque. The youth from the night before are waiting for us there too, ready to serve. Rudi plays his guitar and the boys sing worship songs. Indigentes are surrounding us. Some singing when they know the words, some dancing, everyone at least clapping. The youth and I hand out café and pan. Horacio leads a short devocional. Did I mention that Horacio's kids started this street ministry? O that these youth and homeless ministries aren't what he gets paid for? That he's a pastor, and that these ministries come straight from his own pocket, like a Christian zakat? Someone tells me how great Don Horacio is, how he's different. He understands us. He even sleeps out here on the streets with us sometimes. Another man interrupts, "Soy el portero, y usted va a jugar con mi equipo."

Left midfield. You know, I always prefer the right, but it pays off. Indigentes, jóvenes, y un gringo playing the greatest sport, the greatest equalizer: fútbol. First half, only one goal for nuestro equipo. We're losing. Half time, tres indigentes y Jeffry y yo share a cup of hot water. Second half, dominación. "Centro, Centro!" I yell. José with the perfect pass. Off the laces. Top left corner of the goal. Minutes later, a corner kick. Jeffry lauches it and I dive into the best header I've ever had. Bottom right corner. "Ay, gringo!" everyone yells. Thirty minutes later and Horacio, standing as el arbitro, blows the final whistle. We win.

I get back in the car. Our portero, wearing clothes that needed washing weeks ago, runs up. "You always have forever friend with me. Come back in the next week!" I learn what it feels like to hug Jesus, and he sings as he walks away. Driving back, I can't stop thinking about how bad I'm going to feel when Horacio drops me off and there are butt and back sweat stains on the seat. "¿Entonces, vas a venir conmigo mañana a la iglesia? Y en miércoles de nuevo a los indigentes si quieres venir." Wouldn't miss either for the world, Horacio.

...When Guilt Leads to Good

I was talking to a friend/mentor the other day. She said that just like that "God-shaped hole" inside each of us, there's something within us that responds to redemption stories, "something about us that's drawn to stories of redemption. Part of God's wooing of us."

I just finished the book The Kite Runner and found it to be one of the most disturbing books I've ever read. Not disturbing in the perverse or graphic sense of the word, though it was graphic at parts, but disturbing in how deeply the story affected me. Few stories have ever moved me like this one, and few stories will I recommend as adamantly. In the words of this same friend, there is no equal in redemption stories.

"True redemption...when guilt leads to good." --Khaled Hosseini

Love is in the House

After three buses and one taxi, I arrive at my Costa Rican home from last summer. My mama tica calls everyone over, and before I know it, the house is packed--padres, hermanos, tios, abuelos, amigos. I think it genuinely takes me half an hour to circle the room, falling into hug after hug--strong embraces, embraces that last so long they should be awkward. We sit around talking, filling each other in on what's happened during the past year. Roy, mi papa tica, making gay jokes about me again and chanting every English profanity he knows; Andoni, mi hermano, punching me and calling me "feo;" Rosi, mi mama, telling me stories and jokes and laughing so hard she can't breathe; Dillon, mi hermano, performing magic tricks and explaining how he finally got that girl Helen that he had been chasing last summer; and Glori, mi hermana (see photo on right), whipping out those Uno cards and making me dance to Lady Gaga with her. The house is packed with joking and laughing. My tia Juanita says things only she thinks are funny, her husband mutters some form of Spanish I never quite understand, and mi abuelo Papón recounts the glorious history of Costa Rica and his family. Love is in the house, and the house is packed. I hate my watch for flashing 9:00 and yelling at me to leave, but I have two hours of buses to take. Everyone makes me promise to come back next week, that they'll throw a real party next time. I begin my 30 minute lap of hugs around the room again.

Traditional Theology: Moving on to the Next Kid on the Bench

A theology I heard a lot growing up in the church goes something like this:  If I choose not to obey God's prompting, I miss an opportunity, sin even. However, if God wants something done, it will happen. God isn't dependent on my obedience, and He'll find someone else to do it.

Disagree. It's a nice idea--that God doesn't need us and that ultimately God's will is accomplished, that if I don't do something for God it ultimately doesn't matter because God will find someone else to do it. It really is a nice, reassuring idea about the control and Sovereignty of God. I just don't think it's right.

I know everyone quotes Ephesians 2:10, but there may be a crucial truth here--"We are God's workmanship/masterpieces, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which he prepared in advance for us to do." Maybe we really were created for specific good works.

Maybe God created Keith to do certain things in this world, to reach certain people, to speak certain truths about the unique aspect of God that he sees best. And maybe God created you for something specific, for something no one else can do quite like you can. Maybe you can see and love a side of God that I can't, not in the same way. And maybe you can do things in this world that I can't do, and maybe you can reach people in this world that I can't reach. Maybe that's why God created individuals.

Maybe if I don't do the works God's created me to do, God won't give someone else my load and have them carry the slack. Maybe there really is something specific that God's created me to do, and if I don't do it, it won't get done.

Former President Dwight Eisenhower, commenting on his Presidency and life, attributes all of his success to  the message that his parents instilled in him: "The world could be fixed of its problems if every child understood the necessity of their existence."

Maybe there's a necessity for you. Maybe God made you just the way you are, placed you in certain situations for a reason. Maybe God does have a purpose for your life, a work created in advance for you to do, a work that won't get done if you don't do it. A work that can only be fulfilled by one person--you.

The Power of the Tongue

This morning in my Educational Psychology class, we watched a documentary called "A Class Divided," by PBS Frontline. The film is about a 3rd grade teacher named Jane Elliot teaching at a school in Riceville, Iowa, an almost all-white town. As Elliot recalls, it was right after Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered, and blatant racism plagued America. She was watching the news, and journalists kept asking black people that were a part of the civil rights movement what they were going to do about their people now that their leader had been assassinated. What would their people do now? Elliot says she was disgusted by this subtly condescending language, this language ridden with racism beneath the surface, this language distinguishing between an "us" and a "them" based on skin color.

Elliot decided to push back all of her lesson plans for the week and do a unit on discrimination. Her class of 28 third graders was all white. She began by asking the students about racism, what they thought about black people, Indian people, people that looked different from them. Words like "nigger" and "stupid" and "dirty" slipped out of the mouths of young, developing, frighteningly impressionable minds. When asked, the students said that it wasn't fair to judge others based on factors like skin color, but this mentality of "us" and "them," this racism, was deeply imprinted on these children.

What happened next amazes me. Elliot plays no games. She tells her class directly that they are going to do an experiment for the children to understand discrimination better. Dividing the class into two groups, brown eyes and blue eyes, Elliot tells the class that blue eyed people are naturally better people. They're stronger, smarter, more responsible--better. Brown eyed people, however, are lazy, irresponsible, and much more stupid. They make bad decisions and just aren't as smart. Collars were passed around for all of the brown eyed students to put around their necks, that way the blue eyed students would be able to tell from a distance. Blue eyed children received 5 extra minutes of recess, access to the water fountain, extra attention from the teacher, and were treated as superior students to their brown-eyed peers. Elliot even instructed her blue eyed students not to communicated with the brown eyed students and not to play with them because they were better than those brown eyes.

Before long, the class began to perpetuate this mentality that Mrs. Elliot was feeding them through their behavior. When a brown eyed student would do something wrong, a blue eyed student would blurt out, "It's because they're brown eyes." Little undercuts like that. During recess, the children actually listened to Mrs. Elliot; no blue eyed children played with brown eyed children. A fight even broke out between two previous friends, and a brown eyed boy punched a blue eyed boy in the gut for calling him "brown eyes." The students began excluding other children and making condescending comments about the other students' intelligence and capability based solely on eye color.

The next day, Mrs. Elliot told her students that she had lied to them the previous day: brown eyed students were really better than blue eyed students. The collars traded owners, and the top became the new bottom, yesterday's bottom the new top. And the exact same behavior occurred. Mrs. Elliot taught this same lesson for three consecutive years with different classrooms, and she received the same results every single time. I know. Terrifying. It's appalling to see how easily discrimination can breed and infest someone so quickly, especially our children. Obviously, there are huge truths here about racism, sexism, and discrimination of any kind.

However, what's haunted me all day is a truth much more universal I believe. Mrs. Elliot tested the students each day that she conducted this experiment. The students on top consistently scored higher on assessments. The students on bottom consistently scored lower. Reverse the standards, put the top on the bottom and the bottom on the top, and the results are the same. After this experiment with her students, Mrs. Elliot always has a debriefing. She explains to her students that discrimination is not only illogical but wrong. No matter what your skin color, eye color, or whatever, each one of you is intelligent and beautiful. Each one of you is great. After the debriefing, all the testing scores of all the students were higher for the remainder of the year.

Astounding.

In only 24 hours, students changed completely. They freaking scored higher if the teacher said that they belonged to the smart group. If they belonged to this smart group, children felt better about themselves, tried harder, scored higher. As Eliot states herself, "Almost without exception, the students' scores go up on the day they're on the top, down on the day they're on the bottom, and then maintain a higher level for the rest of the year." Something strange happens to these children that alters their academic abilities. They realize their intelligence, their greatness. It's incredible to think about how spoken words can influence children so drastically within the classroom environment in a simple 24 hour time-frame.

Proverbs says that "Death and life are in the power of the tongue" (Proverbs 18:21).

In America, suicide is the second highest cause of death for teenagers. In America, 2.5 million juveniles are arrested every year. In America, 74.9% of whites graduate high school, 50.2% of blacks, 53.2% of Latinos, and 51.1% of American Indians. (Swanson, 20004)



What the hell kind of words are we speaking to our children?!



If spoken words can have such a drastic influence on children within the classroom, imagine the effect, the eternal effect, that our words can have if we speak LIFE into a child. If we pour LIFE words into a child, imagine the effect that our words can have on that child's destiny. Rob Bell says, "Jesus reminds his disciples, ‘You did not choose me, but I chose you.’ People in the Scriptures essentially are loved into their futures. Think of how many of us had encouraging or affirming or inspiring words spoken to us years ago about our worth, our value, our future, and how those words shaped us. We often carry those words of agape around with us our whole lives.”

Seriously, what kind of message are we giving our children and our youth?

Collateral Blessings of Going to Class

Every Monday, I have a night class from 6 to 9, the teaching of writing. The class is composed of half undergraduate and half graduate students, all either prospective or current teachers, so it makes for some very interesting discussions. I love the class. One of my fellow undergraduate friends, however, always has the same complaint: the undergraduate students are optimistic and passionate, aiming to change the world through teaching; the graduate students are negative and bitter, having lost their love of teaching. I suppose to some extent this is true. At least, I understand why he would say that. I hope he saw things differently tonight.

Recently, the graduate students have been giving presentations and leading class discussions for the first half of class. One of the graduate students tonight presented on self-efficacy and writing. She was asking a lot of good questions, like what are the connections between self-efficacy and writing, and whether or not being a good writer will affect a students' self-efficacy. This graduate student teaches at an alternative school in Charlotte, and she talked about how a lot of her students are very poor writers. Regardless of whether or not they really are poor writers, they certainly see themselves in this light. Many of these students have been told their whole lives that they're not good at school, that they're stupid, that they won't succeed in life. So many of the students at this alternative school have internalized what they've heard, and their self-efficacy is practically non-existent. They don't ever see themselves as being able to succeed in life--life outside of the streets--and especially don't see themselves as being able to succeed in the classroom.

As a part of her presentation, this graduate student read a letter one of her students had given her. This student has been in and out of trouble his whole life and currently is in juvie. 17, about to turn 18, and in the 9th grade. His letter would be considered as "bad writing" by school--lots spelling and grammatical errors. This graduate student, this student's teacher, however, didn't read that letter as "bad."

He wrote about his life, his struggles on the streets and in the classroom. He talked about how he's never been a good writer and he never will be. He had no potential in school and no future outside of trapping--drugs was his only future.

This student bared his soul in that letter. And school would call it "bad writing." In class, I started getting caught up in my own anger over how the education system works. I was fuming, barely listening I was so mad. I'm glad life didn't leave me in that place for long. I hardly had any time to be angry. This graduate student, reading her student's letter, started crying. That completely unplanned, choking kind of crying. For a while, she just stood there. Her lips trembled, her face grew red and wet, and she just stood there. When she finally started reading the letter again, it took her several tries to find her voice, and when she did, it came out in soft, short breaths.

Everything that we had talked about in class that day--grammar, writing, literacy, self-efficacy, --melted away, didn't even matter. The love this teacher had for her student overshadowed it all. And it re-focused me on why I'm in this education track in the first place.

A Naked Bush

"Without training and pruning, fruit trees will not develop proper shape and form. Properly trained and pruned trees will yield high quality fruit much earlier in their lives and live significantly longer. A primary objective of training and pruning is to develop a strong tree framework that will support fruit production. Improperly trained fruit trees generally have very upright branch angles, which result in serious limb breakage under a heavy fruit load. This significantly reduces the productivity of the tree and may greatly reduce tree life. Another goal of annual training and pruning is to remove dead, diseased, or broken limbs. Proper tree training also opens up the tree canopy to maximize light penetration. For most deciduous tree fruit, flower buds for the current season's crop are formed the previous summer. Light penetration is essential for flower bud development and optimal fruit set, flavor, and quality. Although a mature tree may be growing in full sun, a very dense canopy may not allow enough light to reach 12 to 18 inches inside the canopy. Opening the tree canopy also permits adequate air movement through the tree, which promotes rapid drying to minimize disease infection and allows thorough pesticide penetration. Additionally, a well shaped fruit tree is aesthetically pleasing, whether in a landscaped yard, garden, or commercial orchard."

FOCUS--Fellowship of Christians United in Service--is a ministry GWU offers where teams of about 10 or so college students go out to different churches and lead weekend retreats for their youth groups. This past weekend, I went on a FOCUS trip to Wake Forest Baptist Church. Last year, I went on the same trip to the same church and loved it. It made such an impression on me that I made sure I went back again. This year, it was even better.

The focus of our weekend was John 15--the vine metaphor. Verse 5 is on the back of our t-shirts: "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." We talked a lot about God's command in this passage: remain in me. I think that's where we miss it as Christians; we focus on the fruit. God's command is not to bear fruit but to remain in Him. The fruit? a byproduct, a symptom of relationship, something God creates, not me. My friend in the grad school here at GWU told me that in Greek, the word for "remain" is meneo, which refers to a dwelling place, a home. Our command is to dwell in God, to abide in God, and trust that S/He'll take care of the rest.

Verse 2 talks about a gardener, the one who comes around and prunes the vine's branches so they can grow more fruit, better fruit. Imagine what this looks like. You know, you're driving down the road and see a gorgeous house with clean, freshly-mowed grass, maybe some red and yellow tulips, several young, lush trees... and then the bushes right there in front, the ones that have just been pruned. And they look bad. I mean absolutely terrible. They ruin the whole scene. Bereft of their green robes, they've been stripped of all their leaves, all their dignity. Naked and exposed, they kind of hunch and crouch, trying to disappear, like they're embarrassed. Their limbs amputated, they look like they're in pain, and all that remains is a bunch of harsh-looking nubs.

And that's how I've felt lately. An ugly, hurting, embarrassed, pruned bush.

The past few weeks have been hell. I can honestly say they've been some of the most difficult and painful times in my whole life. I've never struggled so much with feeling rejected and betrayed, with feeling unloved and unappreciated, with feeling abandoned and deserted. I've felt naked and alone, punished even. Hurt, embarrassed, ashamed, ugly; and mourning the loss of my once emerald leaves, my once lush branches. I've been hunching over, crouching down.

God destroyed that this past weekend, and S/He used a bunch of high schoolers to do it. Fyodor Dostoyevsky says: "The soul is healed by being with children." I have found that to be too true. I think my problem the last couple weeks has been an issue of focus: my plans, my expectations, my hurt. I talk a lot about what I want, wanting to pursue my PhD, wanting to go to these places, wanting to meet those people, wanting to do this, accomplish that, have this title, win that award...

"Bro--you wanna do all that stuff? Fine. We can go that direction and do all those things, and I'll use it if that's what you want. But this--this!--is what I made you for. This--pouring into youth, investing in what matters, loving what really matters--is the passion I gave you, the passion we share. All those gifts I've given you? all those lessons I've taught you? all those branches I've pruned? it's all been for this. This is your purpose, your fulfillment, your love. This is the greatness I created you for."

Well damn, God. I get it.

Mixing Metaphors

I read earlier about an interview with Toni Morrison (a Nobel Prize author). The interviewer asked her why she had become a great writer--who has she learned from, where has she studied, what has she read, and so on. In response, Morrison just laughed and said, "Oh, no, that is not why I am a great writer. I am a great writer because when I was a little girl and walked into a room where my father was sitting, his eyes would light up. That is why I am a great writer. That is why. There isn't any other reason."

I have this theory about the individual man or woman. I think each and every one of us has limitless potential. I know we throw that word around a lot--"limitless"--, and so it's kind of been watered down. I'm talking about a potential that is bottomless, that has no confines. An incalculably infinite potential. A boundless and incomprehensible potential. Limitless. A potential for greatness. Every one of us, man and woman, child and adult, have been divinely composed, structured by some greater hand, each of us unique, distinguished, extraordinary. And for what? For greatness.

I don't know what it is, but something is holding us down. Sometimes, I force myself to look at people. I mean really look at people. When I take the time to really gaze into someone, I always see something, some fire hoping for the slightest breeze and a chance to burn like it was created to, to consume this world. It's especially visible in youth. I swear, it's like God makes their skin glass, that's how visible the fire is that's turning over in their bellies. I think the older you get, the harder it is to see that fire, though. It's like some people have been told to ignore the fire for so long, keep in hidden in your belly, and hopefully it'll digest like a piece of poorly cooked food and pass right through your system with only some slight discomfort toward the end.

There's something holding us down.

Every once in a while, I'll glimpse a fire that has been unleashed and given the world to feed upon. It is beautiful. Souls like Mother Teresa, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr... I've even met a few of those souls, and the fire you encounter when you meet someone like that is dangerous. It's hyper-contagious, threatening to deeply infect you, penetrating to the bone, stoking and unleashing your own fire. Damn, it's so exciting! I know I've been made for more than this. I start feeling that rumbling deep, deep down inside of my belly. And it hurts. The fire has been caged, and it was created to breathe air and feed and consume everything, and it wants out. But there's something holding us down.

Donald Miller said, "Maybe a human is defined by who loves him." I think he's right. I think maybe that's the thing holding us down. We want to feel loved. We need to feel loved. We have to feel like someone really loves us if we want to go on, especially if we want to reach our potential. And it has to be a love that isn't dependent on what it gets back. Independent and unconditional. A love that makes a lot of room for failure and disappointment and setback and pain. I think it's only under the sky of a love like that that we can really reach greatness. Maybe that's why it's so important for so many of us to believe in God.

But whatever it is, whether it's feeling loved or not, we can't deny the facts--something is holding us down, and we were fashioned for more than this, for greatness. The ability to create; the ability to imagine and dream; the ability to recognize beauty; the ability to love. But why? For what larger greatness were we bestowed these gifts? To be doctors and lawyers, astronauts and physicists, authors and politicians. Or maybe Donald Miller was right--maybe the greatest desire of humanity is to be known and loved anyway. If so, to be the source, the provider of such a love-- that is really the highest purpose, the greatness we were created for.

"That's the only purpose grand enough for a human life. Not just to love--but to persist in love." --Sue Monk Kidd